Shawnee Smith, a star of the Saw films, is to appear in another horror that's more than likely going to get U.S. conservatives and repressionists screaming from their protective bubbles that block out the real world so effectively.

Slaughter will tell the story of three actresses hired for a Japanese horror film only to find out that it's actually a snuff movie, and there's no way out.

Actually I'm sure there is, or there wouldn't really be a point to the film. The script was written by Nathan Brookes and Bobby Lee Darby which won the Slamdance Film Festival's Horror Screenplay Competition. Victor Garcia is set to direct.

Also joining Shawnee Smith as the actresses caught up in the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter through Empire, are Erica Leerhsen and AnnaLynne McCord. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Eugenia Yuan are set to play the snuff film's director and producer with Karl Yune playing a co-star of the film and Jonathon Trent playing McCord's character's boyfriend.

For the best films that are based on the idea of snuff films, I'd suggest Tesis and 8MM, Tesis being a superbly crafted horror film that really keeps you on the edge of your seat. The idea of snuff films always makes a horror film instantly more scary, but the idea that you could be caught up in one is even scarier, and that's one of the great factors of these two films.

However with this film the plot won't rely on that, they'll be looking at actresses, characters that we won't so easily identify with (unless you're a horror actor/actress!) and already a strong element of these previous films is lost.

Saying that, it did win the Slamdance award, so perhaps there's something more to it than at first glance.